4/20/2011 @ 12:35PM

Royal Residences Now Owned By Commoners

As the clock ticks down toward the day later this month when Prince William of Wales and Catherine Middleton tie the knot, Royal Wedding mania is reaching epic proportions. The world’s middle class isn’t the only group keen on owning a bit of royal memorabilia. Some of the world’s richest “commoners” have paid tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars for the former residences of history’s royal families.

With a few properties, “commoners” inhabited them before becoming royalty. Such was the case with the 495,000 euros (or more than $806,000) childhood home of England’s soon to be newest royal family member, Kate Middleton. The residence will head to a real estate auction this June. Most of the other residences were owned by royals from their beginnings and are palatial multimillion-dollar palaces that only ultra-rich commoners can afford.

The rolling hills of the French Riviera claim a plethora of seaside castles claiming royal lineage. Another common thread these days: billionaire buyers. Roman Abramovich, Russia’s ninth-richest man, owns Chateau de la Croe, once home to King Edward VIII of Great Britain, the Duke of Windsor. Abramovich reportedly purchased the estate in 2004 for as much as 30 million euros, or about $45 million.

Rumors have swirled around Villa Leopolda, one of several sprawling seaside complexes that Belgium’s King Leopold II is rumored to have built for his mistresses. The late Lebanese billionaire banker Edward Safra bought Villa Leopolda in 1988. His wife Lily took possession after his death. In 2008 the home almost sold to another Russian billionaire, Mikhail Prokhorov. Initially Prokhorov offered a record-breaking 500 million euros (or $750 million) for the luxurious estate. By 2010 he had backed out of the deal, forfeiting a nearly $55 million deposit. The current ownership of the estate is unknown but widely debated.

Alexandra Connolly of Alexandra Lloyd Properties, a luxury real estate firm specializing in rentals and sales along the Cote d’Azur, is brokering the rental of Le Mas d’Aréthuse, a regal mansion in Cap Martin. It has been inhabited by everyone from the Count of Montgomery to the Crown Prince Danilo de Montenegro.

Connolly says the Saint Jean and Villefranche neighborhoods tout many royal properties as well as Cannes, where Arab royals once dominated real estate.

“Most of them [Cote d'Azur's royal properties] are actually owned by Russians now,” says Connolly. “Over the past five, six years they have had the budgets to buy these properties. Many weren’t even on the market, which has changed [increased] prices of this market a lot.”

Just what royal lineage does to the value of an estate is difficult to pinpoint. Much like celebrity ownership, a royal history will differentiate a property from others of similar caliber. As Connolly notes, if two properties are closely comparable, the one with an imperial background will often times snag the sale. That said, the price tag has more to do with the location and quality of the property itself.

“It’s more to do with the fact that they are all beautiful, Belle Epoque-style properties that have good orientations and good views,” explains Connolly.

There are also some modern royal residences for sale, including two American homes formerly owned by members of the Saudi royal family. In 2007 Prince Bandar bin Sultan sold off the guest quarters of his sprawling Hala Ranch in Aspen, Colo. That guesthouse fetched $36.5 million and is now back on the market for $40 million, having been re-labeled the Star Mountain Ranch.

The Bradbury, Calif., estate where late Saudi Prince Ahmed bin Salmon kept his prized race horses, as well as a quarter track to train them, sold to an unknown buyer for $6.5 million in 2005. It has graced the Multiple Listing Services on and off since then, with an asking price of $8.5 million.

Another Saudi royal, and billionaire, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Alsaud, is seeking to sell his Italian castle in the Turin hills for 18 million euros, or $25.8 million. The almost 1,000-year-old Castle of Castagneto Po also happens to be the former home of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, France’s First Lady.

That sale is being brokered by Emile Garcin Properties, a global luxury real estate firm with roots in France and plans to expand into the U.S. The firm has brokered many formerly royal estates, including the recent 32 million euro ($45.8 million) sale of a Parisian Mansion listed as a historical monument with ties to France’s royal families of centuries past.